here are the last of my practice images, unless i find a bunch time in betwen classes, homework, work, writing, and story boarding but i'm not sure i see that happening too much. from doing these images though, i have found what style i will be using, which will a complete mix of styles i have toyed with to ultimately try and achieve my goal of making this story emotional, accurate (according to family stories), and i want the overall feeling and imagery of the book to be beautiful, dreamy, and frightening in ways only the character has seen. i am editing and proof reading and cutting and pasting my introduction to the book right now and i will post it in the next few hours so that hopefully the people that take the time to read this can grasp the feeling and over all idea of the book if they havent read any of the blog yet. thanks.

The Siller Motor Company

Recently i started (but have yet to finish) some mock advertisements for my great grandpas Buick Pontiac GMC dealership. It was the Siller Motor Company in Hancock Mi. He owned it from the 1930's to the 60's but to this day Buick is still our family vehicle.

I originally had the idea of doing some classic cars for a long time but it never occured to me to do Buicks for my grandpas no-longer existing dealership until my aunt said i should do them. So i started doing some research on advertisements for his dealership and realized they are nearly non existent. i did find a few but they were very minimal. At first if bummed me out, but then it just got me going on finally doing some really cool advertising pieces for his dealership, even if i was 70ish years too late. Here is the 1938 Buick i have begun to draw along with the actual 1938 ads I found and will incorporate into the pictures. I will be doing a series of 4 or 5 and will give them to my aunts, grandpa and mom.

I've been driving around alot lately and checking out antique shops and doing light research on historical things from around the UP and have become pretty interested in the Bosch Brewing Co. I bought an old bottle from the brewery that originated in Houghton Mi., and was later bought up by Linenkuegel Beer in Wi. But here are some cool old pictures of the Bosch Brewery.

New page!

this is the 3rd practice image i have completed. i have been put these together to help me decide the format of the whole book, whether i want it to be vertical or horizonal, rectangular or square. so far i enjoy the horizontal or landscape format the best.

my work area!!

practice

this is newest character image. i just finished it a few minutes ago.

sumi-e ink on illustration board

I have been working on the idea and story for another book for a long time. It basically follows the life of a WWII veteran after his years in the war, showing how his life changed, and how normal, everyday things bring the war back to him everyday and how he copes with life, eventually accepting that it is something he must live with along with trying to make his wife understand that she can never understand. the final chapter of the book follows the final days of his life, as he realizes that the loss of his wife, is truly the downfall of him, physically and emotionally, and that although in his earlier years life had bad things in it, he realizes that there would be, no longer, anything good for him. As he takes his own outlook and life into his hands he takes the final bus ride of his life to grow backwards to a young man and meet his wife all over again to live their lives the way they should have been.

i am now story boarding, slowly but surely, and doing practice images and organizing multiple family war story and PTSD instances that will make up my book (images and story line.)

above is a practice image i created trying to find a good style and inspiration to make the images.